Looking for frugal recipes for family of 3

AmatullahMuwahidah

I find East African and Middle Eastern and Asian food is flavoursome, but not expensive. There’s a lot of lentils, couscous, rice, home made breads etc these ingredients are affordable. The spices they use make it tasty.

This potato dish is nice:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sPrAr-bvyMo

A nice egg dish:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff8jgnUH3hw

Use chicken thighs to make these:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qla05UP2TY&list=PLZpEix2HAZecELYfHDwRh3GBSk0Nqy7i9&index=46&t=0s

And put the chicken kebabs with home-made flat bread (so much cheaper than store bought!):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR0cvRv-Rks

You can eat breads, rice, potatoes etc if you’re not doing Keto. Just portion control sensibly and don’t eat too much, stick within your calories allowance.

ssooooz

I do a lot of my grocery shopping online (Coles Supermarket, Australia). I start by looking through the half price specials, the general specials, then go through my list and sort the results by unit price. You can easily track how much you are spending when you add things to your cart. My savings always easily exceed the delivery costs, which is sometimes free if I need to do a big shop - otherwise I can 'Click'n'Collect' if I want too.

weatherking2019

25 Simple 5-Ingredient Meals for Under $5 to Feed a Whole Family
https://merryformoney.com/5-ingredient-meals/
51 Healthy Frugal Dinner Recipes You Can Make for Under $2
https://merryformoney.com/frugal-dinner-recipes/
21 Cheap Pantry Staples List on a Limited Budget
https://www.thefrugalgene.com/pantry-list/

deannalfisher

i use a lot of the sales flyers and buy stuff in bulk when possible - i.e. pasta this week was 87c a book for the 16oz boxes - so i bought a bunch for down the road; many grocery stores do 50% off protein that needs to be used that day (chicken etc)

i think your biggest win would be meal planning and figuring out over a week how to maximize use of different things - i.e one week heavy rice dishes with protein that you can make different ways; maybe week after its another grain...grains and straches are often cheap to buy (i.e. a bag of barley which would feed 4 for a couple of days is like $1.50 for me)

happysquidmuffin

Eat less of the chicken, and stretch meals further with lots of rice, beans, lentils. Buy whole heads of cabbage and lettuce vs. packaged precut mixes. Make broth based veggie soups. Experiment with flavored vinegars. Make your own bread and pizza crusts. You can eat the same things over and over if you learn how to mix up the flavors.

Katmary71

I second beans, legumes, and grains from bulk, dried is cheaper and tastes a lot better. You can get onions, celery, carrots, potatoes, and garlic in big bags to add to soups. I save veggie scraps and make broth. I also get a lot of store brand items like diced tomatoes. Signing up for grocery store programs is a good idea, I recently stopped at Raley's for a sale item and got 8 coupons for discount or free produce. If you buy packaged products there's refund sites like Ibotta.

jesuslovesme196

srianenelson wrote: »

Hey guys, I'm struggling a bit to try and keep a cheap, but very healthy diet for my family. Mom and dad and a three year old. I usually get the big bags of frozen chicken and tilapia at Walmart, and use frozen vegetables like broccoli or fresh vegetables like yellow squash and zucchini. Fruit most the time is apples, oranges and bananas and I cook with either 100% virgin olive oil or real butter. We make a lot of deli sandwiches (chicken, colby cheese slices and loose leaf lettuce with whole wheat). Snacks are typically string cheese, yogurt, apple sauce or pickles, and tuna sandwiches (Avocado mayo is amazing) . Breakfast is eggs on toast or generic brown sugar oatmeal (my son loves it).

I think we do well and I can feed them all on less than $300 a month, typically. The hard part is that it's literally the same stuff every day and anytime I try to change it up, the healthy recipes I find are either expensive or not something they want to eat. Last attempt was cauliflower pizza and neither of them could eat it. Can anyone suggest some changes that are still within a $300 per month budget? I'm especially struggling with getting in the recommended iron and protein.

Breakfast for dinner
Spaghetti
Chili/Soup

dnunny70

I shop Aldi and do use Walmart Grocery Pick Up. I also try not to bring my 13 yo son with me. He adds a lot of food to the cart! LOL

I have started looking at the meat that is on sale/and discounted due to expiring soon. I freeze it or use it before the expiration date. I have gotten grass feed meat that way.

Meal prepping is key (and the area that I struggle the most with).